Our Story

Co-founders Caitria and Morgan created a functional infrastructure for recovery after an EF3 tornado in their hometown of Monson, MA. Read more here.

Recovers.org is the idealization of the infrastructure they built: a clean, easy-to-use recovery software framework that can be deployed before a disaster to prepare communities.

Team

Caitria O’Neill, CEO and co-founder. Caitria has worked for Harvard Law Review and the US State Department, and brings legal, political and editorial experience to the team. When not organizing tornado relief, she spends time leading backpacking trips and reading. She holds an A.B degree in Government from Harvard University and has completed FEMA NIMS 700/800 ICS 100/200. She currently lives in Pacifica, CA. Follow her on Twitter at @CaitriaONeill

Alvin Liang, CTO and co-founder. Since receiving his S.B. and M.Eng. degrees from MIT, Alvin has worked in a range of industries, specializing in start-ups. He was previously a software engineer in San Francisco, CA for Crittercism, and in Cambridge, MA for LabLife (now part of LabGuru). He misses biology research from time to time.

Chris Kuryak, COO. Chris holds a masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. He was the President of the MIT Film Club and on the staff of the MIT Clean Energy Prize. He worked for four years at Athena Manufacturing in Austin, Texas after receiving a B.S. from the University of Texas at Austin. He spends his free time working on independent films, playing videogames, and traveling.

Emily Wright, Design Director. Emily is an experience designer and illustrator. She studied at Parsons School of Design and California College of the Arts. Before joining Recovers, Emily was a 2012 Code for America Fellow focused on crisis response and disaster preparedness. She likes pretzels, and engaging her neighbors through interactive SMS projects.

Morgan O’Neill, Chief Science Officer and co-founder. Morgan has over 3 years of experience in political campaigns ranging from city council races to a presidential election. She is a MA-certified EMT-B and actively volunteers for an ambulance service. She has a B.Sc. in Physics from UNH and is now pursuing a doctorate at MIT in Atmospheric Physics.

6 thoughts on “About”

Hey guys,
I’m one of the core developers on a project called Byzantium. The project is an emergency mesh networking system that runs on commonly available hardware (laptops and any other x86 based machines with wifi cards). We would like to talk to you to at the very least pick your brains about the situation on the ground immediately after the disaster so we can better tailor our efforts to meet the needs of the people we’re trying to enable. Our website is http://project-byzantium.org we would lover to hear from you soon as we will be going to Barcelona, Spain in October for a conference on mesh network interoperability and would like to get a fuller picture of our particular scope of interest (we are also the only group there specifically focused on emergencies as far as I know).

In 2004 when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, I was in Colorado and watched the horrific scenes and lack of prep for a disaster , during and after. Then, listening to your story on TED.com reminded me of the same thing. But, you lived it! From that you took action and created something that helps people. When chaos ensues and no one takes charge or assumes command, everyone is a chicken with its head cut off. Y’all were the rooster and commanded.

I’ve been in the safety industry, mainly in Aquatics for almost 20 years. I honestly cannot say that I could do what you did…until you are put to the test. I was but it was with one person. At the time I worked at Walt Disney World as a Recreation Coordinator. I went to my first emergency and just like you, I saw chaos. As I got there, no one was taking charge. To afraid or stunned at what was happening. I took charge. No, the lady did not live. But we worked together as a team.

This is true of your story. You took action and saved peoples lives because of action. If this happened in Jacksonville, Florida in my section of town, in my neighborhood, on my street; what would we do? Kudos to what you are doing. I would love to have some dialogue with you about what you do. Thank you for your courage to step up!

Great feedback RecoveryDiva. We’re still in the process of choosing a WordPress theme, and I will make sure that the one we settle on has larger font and is much easier to navigate. Thank you!
-Caitria O’Neill

Hi,
I love what you are doing, first seeing your presentation on Ted. I’ve written a post about your site and I do hope that I’ve gotten all the details correct. Feel free to pop on over and correct me if I’m wrong. Cheers